veni, vidi, vici: gemstones

[cywscross]

Summary: When Shion gets home, she’s going to build a bonfire and toast marshmallows while the ten-year bazooka burns.  Possibly the cow too.

Or the one where the ten-year bazooka malfunctions again, and Shion gets dumped in the canon storyline.

A/N: I might do another version of Shion getting dimension-hopped. The bazooka has always had a lot of potential XD But also I don’t like this one much, it started out okay and then it got… clunky.

 

For the first couple days she’s stuck in this stupid, horrible world, Shion keeps her head down.  She steals some second-hand clothes because the bazooka couldn’t even have the decency to drop her off with her wallet, but she needs an outfit that doesn’t look like she just walked out of a business meeting that ended… well, bloodily.  Also, she’s still a high-schooler, and she sticks out like a sore thumb walking around in anything but casual clothes or a school uniform.

At least she’s in Namimori, but that’s about the only good thing she’s discovered in this situation.  Right after changing out of her clothes, the next step was – of course – finding Tsuna.  Surely her brother would at least put her up until her own people can get her back.

Except-

It doesn’t take long to realize that – in this world – there is no Sawada Shion.  At first, she thought maybe she and this world’s version of her must have switched places, but hours of intermittent eavesdropping on this Tsuna and his friends were more than enough to make her realize that she simply does not exist in this dimension.

And it shows.

She watches her brother from a park bench, and the differences are jarring.  He’s a few years younger, probably still in middle school, but that hardly matters in the face of literally everything else.  His friends – Hayato, Takeshi, Ryouhei, and even Lambo all accounted for – are constantly bickering and fighting, which, granted, they do that in her world too, but they lack the respect they should have for each other, and even worse, when Tsuna tries to calm them down, they simply bulldoze right over him, disregarding his protests like they don’t even hear.

Worst of all, Shion can’t even really blame them.  Because this Tsuna stutters and stammers over every other word he says, he wails and screams when Lambo so much as waves a harmless little smoke grenade around, never mind Hayato’s explosives, and he cringes like he doesn’t have a spine.

Shion watches him most with an appalled sort of disbelief, feeling like a part of her brain just can’t compute what she’s seeing.  Her Tsuna can be cautious and long-suffering when their assorted Family members blow up a wing of the base again, but he’s also excellent at taking almost everything in stride, he can be just as crazy as the people they’ve gathered around them, and most of all, when he speaks, their Family listens.  Sure, not always for long, especially when it comes to the arguments between Kyouya and Mukuro or Hayato and Takeshi, but they all know that when Tsuna tells them to tone it down or to clean up after themselves, he doesn’t mean forever, just for a while, because there are fights, and there are fights, and everyone in their Family knows that the latter isn’t allowed because they’re also family.

Tsuna doesn’t mind disagreements, even when they get violent.  So long as nobody crosses that line in the sand between respect – however grudgingly given – and a lack of it that would turn relationships ugly, they can duke it out to their hearts’ content.  They just have to pay for the damages afterwards.

They’re not orders, is the thing, when Tsuna mediates between the more volatile members of their Family.  Because when he does give an order, he is obeyed.  Even Mukuro and Kyouya respect him enough to bend.

Here though, there’s none of that.  Mukuro and Kyouya aren’t here, but Hayato looks at Takeshi with real contempt as he waves his dynamite threateningly at the (future?) swordsman, and Takeshi laughs but it’s the sort of laugh that says he doesn’t take the bomber seriously at all.  And neither of them pay one whit of attention to the panicked squealing Tsuna is emitting on the sidelines like some hamster being stepped on.

Her Tsuna would have put a stop to this a long time ago.  Hell, Shion would’ve stopped it, told them to work out their differences or get out, because this kind of behaviour is unacceptable.  Their Family isn’t the sort to all get along all the time, not by a damn long shot, but there’s still a sense camaraderie between them, and if nothing else, Tsuna and Shion have both instilled an absolute sense of us first always in every single member.  In a real battle when an enemy tries to hurt one of them, you can be sure that even the most antagonistic of their Family will do everything in their power to protect them.  Or at least kill the enemy very hard.

With the way this Hayato is spitting vitriol at Takeshi at the moment, and the way this Takeshi dismisses him with every careless, distracted laugh, Shion highly doubts they’d put their differences aside even when confronted with an enemy.

And a Family like that, like this one right in front of her, is nothing but a disaster waiting to happen.

She’s not even surprised when Lambo pipes up with something loud and obnoxious and gets one of Hayato’s dynamites thrown in his face.  The kid goes flying, already in tears, but while Tsuna shrieks and flaps his arms around, none of them goes after Lambo to make sure he’s alright, not even Ryouhei who has a younger sister and – in her world – gets delegated to babysitter more often than not when they need one, largely because for all that he isn’t the brightest bulb in the box, he’s still kind, and he knows how to treat children right, and the kids under their Family’s banner all adore him.

More dynamite fly, Ryouhei exclaims over how extreme it is, Takeshi calls them toys, and Tsuna cowers in ways Shion did not think possible.

Wow.  Just wow.

The park explodes, and with a disgusted exhale, Shion gets to her feet and leaves.

-0-0-0-

Reborn finds her a day later.  She’s not surprised – she hasn’t exactly gone out of her way to be subtle, and if the baby hitman didn’t pick up on her presence, that would’ve been a surprise.

She’s dozing on a different park bench, and when she opens her eyes, the fedora-adorned tutor is perched on the branch of a tree above her.  Leon is still a chameleon on his shoulder but she’s not stupid enough to think he won’t be a threat if he wants to be.

She also doesn’t want to be disturbed if Reborn decides to play a game of 20 Questions, Russian Roulette Style with her, so she figures honesty is the best policy.

“Yo,” She waves lazily up at him.  “Bazooka mishap.  I’ll be gone soon enough, no worries.”

Reborn doesn’t blink, and he probably does believe her.  He has a knack for picking out lies.  He hums instead before leaping down onto the back of the bench.

“Who are you then?”  He demands in the polite guise of a question.  “An alternate version of Tsuna?”

Shion smirks.  “Sure, let’s go with that.”

Reborn stares at her some more.  Shion smiles back winningly.  The détente lasts right up until Reborn draws a gun – not Leon – from out of nowhere, too fast for the untrained eye to see, and fires a bullet point-blank into Shion’s forehead.

The illusion dissipates, laughing, and one block down with an ice-cream she bought using the handful of yen she managed to pickpocket from Reborn, Shion continues chuckling merrily.

-0-0-0-

Shion has been told – more than once – that she’s the spitting image of Giotto, just… curvier, and with longer hair.  So Reborn’s persistent curiosity is understandable, and honest or not, Shion didn’t promise she was harmless.

School hours now mean Shion gains a shadow.  Reborn’s probably guessed by now that she isn’t an alternate version of his student, but she is related to him in some way, even though physically they look almost nothing alike.

“Don’t you want to see Tsuna?”  Reborn says today, padding along on the ledge of the wall beside her.

“Already did,” Shion replies.

“Don’t you want to talk to him?”  Reborn probes further.  “He could help.”

Shion smiles wryly.  “Unlikely.”  Also, if she actually talked to him, she might shake him or punch him in the face in an attempt to snap him out of whatever is wrong with him in this world.

“He could at least feed you and give you the guestroom to stay in until you can get back,” Reborn points out.

Shion shrugs.  “I don’t need it.  It’s warm, it’s not going to rain anytime soon, I have money,” Reborn doesn’t ask where she got that money, and she doesn’t say.  “And I can even grab a shower at the public changing rooms by the pool.”

Reborn is silent for a few seconds.  “…You’re more self-reliant than Tsuna.”

Shion can’t help snorting.  “This Tsuna, maybe.”

Well, that’s not entirely true.  She relies on her brother to always be with her, just as Tsuna relies on her to always be with him.  But outside of the two of them, yes, they’ve always gone about getting what they want their own way.

They don’t speak again that day, and soon after, Reborn departs to go join up with his student.  Shion settles in an outdoor patio of a coffee shop and spends the rest of the afternoon conjuring illusions of random farm animals to amuse herself.  She thought the cow was particularly inspired, especially when it wanders up behind a woman who’s spent the past ten minutes berating the cashier for running out of her favourite cake, mooing loudly enough that she jumps a foot in the air and almost breaks eardrums with how high-pitched her scream comes out.

-0-0-0-

“U- Um, hello?  Are you the person Reborn sent me to see?”

Shion stares up at the sky from the riverbank she’s sprawled on.  “Nope, you have the wrong person.”

“O- Oh, s- sorry to bother you then.”

A few more indecipherable mumbles reach her ears before sneakered feet shuffle off, and Shion is left alone for another fifteen minutes.  Then the shuffling sounds come back, and the same faltering voice asks, “Uh, sorry, but are you sure you’re not supposed to meet someone here?”

This time, Shion doesn’t even bother opening her eyes.  “Pretty darn.”

She waits for him to apologize again and retreat again like a beaten dog, except-

“It’s just!  Y- You look like the person Reborn described so…” The voice blurts out, anxious and even borderline fearful for whatever reason, but persistent all the same, and Shion flicks open her eyes again to pin the mousy-looking boy who shares her brother’s face with a flat, impassive stare.  Tsuna flinches even though she hasn’t even moved, but he also stands his ground and stares back, and hell, maybe there is something of her brother in this boy after all.

She heaves a sigh that makes Tsuna flinch.  Ignoring that, she pushes herself up into a sitting position and glances sharply up at the boy still hovering nervously a few feet away.  “What are you even supposed to be doing?”

Tsuna shrugs helplessly.  “Reborn just said to come find you.”

Shion eyes him skeptically.  “And you didn’t ask why?  You just did it?”

Tsuna splutters, “It’s Reborn!”

Shion rolls her eyes and turns back to the river below.  “So?  He’s here to train you.  You’re the only heir left.  The one thing he can’t do is kill you.  If you don’t want to do something he wants you to do, just tell him where to shove it.”

Tsuna squeaks like he’s about to faint.  Shion can feel a headache building behind her eyes.  God, how many more days is it going to take Shouichi to reverse the bazooka’s latest effects?  She wants to go home already.

It takes a few minutes, but eventually, the silence gets awkward enough for even Tsuna to get over whatever’s bothering him and drift a little closer, gingerly taking a seat beside Shion, careful to leave a good two feet between them.

“So, um,” Tsuna fidgets in place, casting nervous glances at her every few seconds.  “How do you know Reborn?  You must be really strong to not be afraid of him.”

Shion quirks a sardonic smile.  Not afraid?  Oh, she was terrified of that damn baby when he first arrived.  More powerful than anything she or her brother had ever come across, Reborn was the advent of everything that could tear her and Tsuna apart, the representation of the monster that threatened to destroy their entire world all because Vongola wanted a clueless civilian boy to play puppet king and her equally ditzy sister on her back in some powerful ally’s bed, legs spread and obedient for the rest of her life.  Forget Shion’s reaction, Tsuna hit the roof when Reborn broke the news about that.  They’d assumed, back then, naively, after listening to Iemitsu’s ramblings and putting the pieces together themselves, that Tsuna would be Vongola Decimo if all the other heirs died – true enough – but also that Shion would take over as CEDEF head or even Varia leader.  Not bartered off as some… broodmare.  As jaded as they already were, it still didn’t occur to them that something so- so archaic would still be in practice in the modern world.

And maybe Reborn was just the messenger, but aside from Iemitsu, he was the first person she and Tsuna could put a face to and connect back to Vongola, the biggest threat they’d ever faced, the first line of attack from the enemy they’d set themselves against, and it didn’t help that the Sun Arcobaleno was violent and sadistic and completely used to getting his own way by whatever means necessary.

Needless to say, their early days – and many days after that – were not in the least bit friendly, and Shion can admit she hated him almost as much as she feared him.

She still doesn’t like him much, but.  Tsuna does, for reasons which even she can barely understand on a good day, mostly because she doesn’t want to or she might start accusing someone of Stockholm Syndrome or something, but Tsuna wants to keep him around, and there’s not much Shion wouldn’t give her brother, so she’s learned to tolerate the hitman.

“He was my brother’s tutor,” She finally says, slanting a look to the side and finding Tsuna – while a bit hunched over and looking increasingly embarrassed – still waiting for her reply.

The patience is the same, she supposes.

Tsuna looks back at her with wide eyes.  “Eh?  Reborn had another student?  I thought there was only Dino-nii.”

Shion raises an eyebrow.  Dino-nii?  The Bucking Horse is a brother figure here?

She studies this boy carefully before shrugging.  It’s not really much of a secret.  She’ll be gone soon enough.  “Yeah, it was like that for us too.  Didn’t Reborn tell you?  I’m not from this world.”

Tsuna blinks.  She can practically see the question marks floating above his head.  “Not from…?”

“You know about the bazooka, right?”  Shion asks, and realization dawns on Tsuna’s face.  “Yeah, there was a small… mishap.  My friends will get me back soon though.”

“Oh,” Tsuna frowns a little before looking at her with new eyes.  “Oh!  So you’re Dino-nii’s sister then!  I didn’t know he had one.  Or maybe that’s different between- eep!”

Shion hauls him towards her by the front of his shirt until there’s barely two inches between their noses.  “I’m not Chiavarone’s sister, you dummy!”

And ugh, she’s never been able to insult her brother properly, even in the few times she’s wanted to, and apparently that applies to his alternate selves too.

“Hiiiieeee!!”  Tsuna shrieks, and with a grimace, Shion lets him go again.  That scream should be weaponized.  “I’m sorry!  I just thought- You said Reborn only had two students in your dimension too, and- and Dino-nii’s blond and you’re blond and-”

Well okay, Shion supposes she’ll have to give him that one.  Not many Japanese are blond-haired and blue-eyed either.

“I’m a throwback,” she sighs.  “I take after the Primo.”

Tsuna opens his mouth.  Then he closes it again, and he stays very quiet for the next ten minutes and counting.

“Have I… become a mafia boss in your world?”  He finally asks, softly, hesitantly, but for the first time since Shion laid eyes on him, there’s a steel in his voice that she’d recognize anywhere.

She turns a grin on him, wild and bright.  “No.”

Tsuna’s brow furrows, his head cocks in thought.  “Because he has you.”

Shion laughs at that.  “He has me, and I have him, and we decided no, we didn’t want to be mafia, especially on Vongola’s terms.”  She pauses, and one of the best things she’s always loved about her brother is his ability to know when she isn’t finished speaking, and his willingness to wait until she’s ready.  “…We always thought that we’d be enough.  So long as we had each other, we’d be okay.  Sure, we pulled in other people for their skills, but they were still outsiders, and we didn’t need them, not really.”

Tsuna droops a little.  “I don’t have anybody like that.  I don’t have a sister here.”

Shion scoffs.  “I noticed.”

Tsuna winces.  “Sorry.”

Shion huffs out a breath.  “I feel sorry for you.  I’m amazing.  You’re the one missing out.”

It startles a laugh out of Tsuna, who blinks and looks even more startled that he laughed at all.

Shion smirks at him, but she sobers quickly, and after a moment of consideration, she tells him, “We didn’t need other people, and I still think we don’t.  We’d manage.  I’ve never needed anyone or anything so long as I had Tsu-nii, and Tsu-nii’s the same with me.”

There’s a complicated expression on Tsuna’s face upon hearing her nickname for her brother, something torn between wonder and envy.

“But it would be harder,” Shion continues.  “Without the friends we’ve made.  Without our family.  We’re dysfunctional and violent, and there are days when I want to dropkick the whole lot of them off a cliff.”

Tsuna laughs again, high and fluty, voice still mostly unbroken.

“But we’re still family,” Shion stresses.  “At the end of the day, those who’ve stuck with us, those that me and Tsu-nii have let in, we still respect each other even if we want to strangle each other.  We still put each other first.  When an enemy attacks, whether that’s Vongola or some low-level schmuck or Vindice, every single one of us knows that we’d still fight and protect each other to the very end.  Tsu-nii doesn’t need them.  I don’t need them.  But they make things better.  They make us better.  Because we asked them to stay, and they stayed, every step of the way no matter how much it hurt, and so they’re ours.  And because they’re ours, it’s our responsibility to protect them to the best of our ability.  It goes both ways, you see?  Even if it sounds mean, Tsu-nii and I don’t need friends who won’t pull their weight.  We’ve always held our people to a higher standard.  We’ve always pushed them to be the very best they can be, and to always put our family first.  But because we push them, they push us just as much.  After all, it’s not fair to them if they have to stoop to following leaders who don’t deserve them.

“Do you understand, Tsuna?”  Shion meets her brother’s counterpart’s gaze and holds it.  “Do you understand?  And if you do, do your friends do that?  Do you do that for you friends?”

Tsuna flinches at that last part, because he may be slow in some areas, but he’s always been quick on the uptake when it comes to people, and he does understand now.  “I- I don’t want to judge them or- or force them to be something they don’t want to be.”

“If they don’t want to be the best friends they can be to you, then they don’t deserve you,” Shion shoots back.  “Besides, they judge you.  They judge you worthy of following, and worthy of being their friend.  But just because they do now doesn’t mean they always will.  And just because they do doesn’t mean you have to judge them worthy of being your friend.  It doesn’t work like that.  But most of all, if they’re not just going to be your friends, if they’re going to dive headfirst with you into the mafia world, whether that’s against it or with it, then they need to be worthy of each other.”

She reaches over to poke Tsuna’s forehead where the flame usually appears.  It’s a little adorable, the way he goes briefly cross-eyed.  “You want to know how my Tsuna escaped the fate of Vongola Decimo?  Because he grew strong.  But he didn’t grow strong alone.  He has me, yes, but he also has the others, and his Dying Will – his determination and desire to protect – has always been rooted in us, and there’s no way Vongola could tear him away from us.  But it isn’t just him.  Mine is too.  Circle of friends, family, whatever you want to call it – that’s my Dying Will too.  And it’s the same for every member in our group.  Hayato’s Dying Will isn’t just his determination and desire to protect Tsu-nii, it’s to protect all of us.  Same with Takeshi.  Same with the rest, every last one of us.  We may like some more than others, but at the end of the day, when it comes down to it, we are loyal to our own.  All of our own.  Can your Hayato and Takeshi say the same?  Can you say the same?”

Tsuna… looks poleaxed and more than a little overwhelmed.  But there’s a heavier knowledge in his eyes now, and his shoulders tremble a bit like they can feel the weight of responsibility settle there.

Shion softens and sighs.  “You’re still young of course.  You still have a lot of growing up to do.  And I think your friends are a pretty recent thing?  But we started young too, and… well.  Better early than late, you know?  Time waits for no one, and neither does death.”

Tsuna blanches, but at least he doesn’t squeak or wail.  Instead, he looks down at his hands, uncalloused and smooth, and Shion wonders if this is what she and her brother would’ve been if they had lived a civilian life.  If their reactions would’ve been just as terrified as Tsuna’s if they’d had no idea the mafia would one day come for them.

She’s never been gladder to know she’ll never find out.

A near-inaudible popping sound interrupts their silence, and they both look up – Shion’s fingers curling slightly, flames a thought away – to find a purple bazooka appearing out of thin air and tumble straight into Shion’s hands.

A tag is attached to the trigger, reading Pull Me.

Cute.

There’s a note inside at least:

Shion, it’s me. Shouichi’s fixed Giannini’s latest screw-up (and Hayato’s still threatening to shove dynamite in places best not mentioned) so all you have to do is pull the trigger while aiming it at yourself, and you and the bazooka will be transported back. It’s one-way, one-use only so don’t lose it. See you soon, Tsuna.

“Time to go?”

Shion glances up and nods.  “Yup.”

Tsuna nods back, and he seems bafflingly disappointed to see her go considering they’ve only known each other a grand total of thirty-something minutes.

But he’s not her concern, not really.  She’s helped as much as she can, as much as she knows how, even though she wasn’t planning to at all.  Comforting people has always been her brother’s gig.

She gets to her feet, Tsuna a half-second after her, and Shion shoulders the bazooka.

“I,” Tsuna speaks up abruptly, and when Shion looks back at him, there’s a flash of clear, crystalline orange in his eyes.  “I don’t want to be a mafia boss either.  What- How do you think I should fight it?”

Shion regards him for a long, contemplative moment.  “Get stronger.  Become as strong as you can be.  And find friends you can depend on to choose you – you and your people – over the rest of the world.  Maybe that’ll be the friends you have now, maybe it won’t.  It’s all well and good to not judge people, to not put them in black-and-white, good-or-bad little boxes and be done with it.  That’s fine.  But judging whether or not they’re good for you – that’s your right.  And once you find those people, choose your enemy, keep them in your sights, don’t underestimate them, but fight all the same.  You don’t want Vongola to get its claws into you?  Then destroy it.  That’s all there is to it.”

She takes a step back and wraps a hand around the trigger.  Tsuna is still staring at her, eyes ablaze with light, and maybe he’s not so different from her own brother after all if he possesses resolve like that.

He nods, just once, but it’s firmer than anything Shion’s seen from him, and maybe that’s enough.

She pulls the trigger and disappears in an explosion of pink smoke.

-0-0-0-

(Later, Tsuna squashes the queasy what if they leave me?! anxiety that threatens to choke him in favour of cutting into the loud, two-seconds-away-from-outright-violence argument Gokudera is having with Yamamoto, gritting his teeth and raising his own voice until they have no choice but to hear him.

Later, nervously, he pulls Gokudera aside and tells him Yamamoto is his friend, but so is Gokudera, and the bomber doesn’t need to push everyone else away for him to be just as important to Tsuna.

Later, hands shaking, he has a private word with Yamamoto and reminds him that not everyone takes laughter the same way, that it’s good to know Yamamoto is always there with a reassuring word and a ready laugh, but there is a time and place, and maybe Gokudera isn’t quite ready to accept the laughter at face-value instead of taking it as a taunt.

Later, Onii-san asks again for him to join the boxing club, and Tsuna flails and declines again, but he also asks Onii-san to show him a few moves, how to punch, how to block, and how he uses both to protect his sister.

Later, Lambo tries to demand candy from him again, all insults and arrogance, and this time Tsuna puts his foot down and says no because it’s almost dinnertime, but if he eats all his vegetables, then Tsuna will run out afterwards and buy him grape-flavoured ice-cream.

Later, Reborn trains him and tortures him and tutors him, and Tsuna wants to cry and hide under his bed, but he forces himself to concentrate, forces himself to study, forces himself to wring every last bit of energy out and then some, and he clings to that distant goal: get stronger.

Later, students start falling prey to unknown attackers.  Later, Onii-san gets sent to the hospital.  Later, Hibari – furious and vengeful – disappears while in pursuit of his quarry.  Later, it is Tsuna who – feeling ready to throw up – picks up his phone and calls Gokudera and Yamamoto and asks them to come with him because this too is his responsibility.

And later, several battles later, with a boy the mafia broke (six times) at his feet, and his friends injured but alive, cloaked guards arrive, and Reborn tells him, Vindice.

Reborn tells him, step aside.

But even weeks later, that girl on the riverbank floats to the forefront of his memories (a sister he’ll never know, and Tsuna doesn’t believe for a second that he’s better off for it) and her words still echo in his head, full of conviction.

Reborn tells him, step aside.

But Tsuna looks at Mukuro, at Ken and Chikusa and Lancia, and then at the Vindice, and for the first time in his life, he chooses an enemy, and he tells Reborn no.

He has to start somewhere after all.  And Mukuro and his friends were Tsuna’s enemies, but his Intuition whispers, and he refuses to let the Vindice take them.

On the ground, Gokudera and Yamamoto stir, still bleeding, still hurt, but dragging themselves to their feet all the same and turning to face the Vindice at Tsuna’s side.  On one side, Hibari pushes off a wall and narrows his eyes at the faceless guards.

Tsuna still wants to run away.  But he doesn’t, because it’s wrong, because he’s made a choice, and because his friends and allies don’t deserve to follow someone who won’t give them just as much as they give him.)